Claiming the Hellstrip

We live on a busy corner, surrounded by about 100 feet of sidewalk and that lovely weed-filled strip along the road, frequently called, a "hellstrip." I believe the term was coined because the strip of land and scrub gets blasted with fiery summer sun, foot traffic, and loads of salty slush (here in 4-season land). I've pretty much avoided the 'strip, but my sister recently pointed out that it looks "scraggly," and I had to agree. It didn't look so bad before, but now that my front garden looks so phenomenal, the hellstrip's general state of neglect is glaringly obvious.


The "hellstrip" in all its glory.

So yesterday, I made my first attempt at beautifying, and planted some excess Rudbeckia. I was actually pretty stunned at how easily the weeds lifted up, and I was even more surprised by the state of the soil. I expected rock-solid clay, as I have in most of my yard, but I was happy to find some nice crumbly loam, with several little earthworms (and a few grubs). I'm not sure if I'm officially "permitted" to plant in this space, but I figure the town can't be too bothered by some not-so tall flowers in place of the weeds, especially since there are other hellstrip offenders directly across from the town hall.

Besides that little work I did, I've been pretty much leaving the garden alone. I'm pretty amazed at how much is still in bloom, especially the roses.


Like, this Christopher Marlowe rose I bought a week or two ago (above). It's continuing to put out buds, and I love how this rose starts orangey and pink, and then has tons of petals, and eventually looking like an old-fashioned cabbage rose.


My old standby Pink Knockout rose has bloomed again and looks particularly lovely against the insane mass of Boltonia.


Even my Grandmother's rose has started blooming again, and just looks phenomenal when it first breaks bud. I'm not sure if it has a virus, or if its natural, but up close, the petals have hints of white and darker pink veins.

Besides the roses, there are a few more happy surprises.


Like these miniature Shasta Daisies, which have bloomed for the third time this year!


Even my Nepeata 'Six Hills Giant' is putting out new blooms, and IMHO, the Staychis looks fantabulous!


Oscar seems to be enjoying the garden too.

-Steph

Plans for Next Year

The late summer/early fall front garden.

The garden has begun its Fall decline, with things looking more rusty, brown, or golden yellow. So I'm starting to take stock and think about next year.

For one thing, I will absolutely be planting more Dahlia's. My one purple Dahlia I got from Home Depot has been such a surprise and a delight that I can't wait to try more. I like plants that require little care and bloom for a long time. The Dahlia totally fits the bill.


The oft photographed pale purple Dahlia,
continuing to bloom its little heart out.

I took a trip to Lowe's for some compost to dump on a few patches of dirt that were rather too clay-like for my comfort, and came across a huge rose sale... so of course I walked out of there with three bags of composted manure and a new rose bush, a rather leggy-looking Christopher Marlowe (a David Austin shrub rose) for a wopping $5 (which my husband still felt was too much money, because in his words, "would you have bought that rose anyway? So now you just spent $5 more than you would have if there hadn't been a sale.").


Rosa 'Christopher Marlowe'

In all honesty, I really was thinking of buying another rose bush or two (add roses to my list of garden addictions) in the Spring. My front/side yard is like the Sahara and roses seem to really like the 10+ hours of sun I get during summer. So I was going to buy another rose, and I was lucky enough to find a cheap one that I liked; Rosa 'Christopher Marlowe'. In my opinion, this is a truly slutty rose; it has tons of petals, buds that are pink with shades of orange and yellow, a lovely scent, and it reblooms. I mean how could I resist that for five dollars? The photo above really doesn't do it justice (the link sort of does).


Common culinary sage (Salvia officinalis).

For next year, more plants from seed. I had lots of success with sage, love-in-a-mist, echinops, sunflower, and allyssum (not to mention the tomatoes, basil, and cilantro). The sage in the picture above, I grew from seed this Spring. I think this plant might actually be a clump of three individual plants, but still, this baby got huge in just two seasons. Plenty for stuffing the turkey. Truly easy to grow, high germination. Not to mention that the sage is really pretty. I'm thinking about spreading it in a few more places as an edger, but first I'll wait to see how it does over the Winter.

Last lesson - mulch! I didn't mulch the garden this year and have grown to regret it. I wanted to see how many of my plants would self sow. Hah! A ton of plants did self sow. They're called weeds and most of my summer was spent weeding. Never again.

-Steph

It's Grass Season!

Karl Foerster Grass in full fall glory.

Ornamental grass that is. Ever since we inherited a clump of Maiden Grass at our first home in St. Louis, I have been in love with ornamental grasses. They are virtually care free, and they bring movement and sound into the garden. Despite warning about requiring lots of room, I try to plunk 'em down all over the place in my .08 acre lot. My love affair is helped a bit by the fact that Kane's Flower World sells 4-inch pots for $5, pretty much all season. I've planted various Miscanthi and even a giant Ravenna grass (which I gave away to my sister, who has a much larger yard). In the last three years of growing, I've started to learn a thing or two.


Miscanthus 'Gracillimus' looking quite airy.

1) You absolutely cannot move most of these grasses (warm season) until they start growing. If you move them while dormant, they die. I've learned this through trial and error (mostly error).

2) I have mostly planted varieties of Miscanthus (there are about 8 million), and have had best luck with two kinds, Variegated Miscanthus (Miscanthus 'Variegatus'), sometimes called Japanese Silver Grass and Zebra Grass (Miscanthus 'Zebrinus'). A strong third place finisher is Miscanthus 'Gracillimus.' I've found that all three hold their form really well, even when battered by some tough winds (especially Zebrinus).

3) If you want them to bloom, don't move them! I have a horrible habit (shared by many gardeners, I hear) of moving my plants around constantly. Few of my grasses bloom because I tend to move them at least once, if not twice during the summer. I finally let the Karl Foster grass (seen above) stay in one place, and they've rewarded me with lovely golden blooms.

4) Alone (as in not in a hedge grouping), the grasses look best in corners, towards the back of the border, with plants with more nondescript foliage. My favorite pairings of grasses, are with roses, dahlias, cone flowers, and Shasta Daisies. There's something about the narrow blade of the grasses that make a great canvas for the bold flowers and more blah foliage of those plants. So if you have a tall flower, with splindly stems, pair them with some Miscanthus. Actually, scratch that, you can pair grasses with anything with a broader leaf.


Red Double Knock-out Rose looking lovely
paired with Miscanthus 'Variegatus'

Not Buying a Plant Because of Its Flowers?....pshaw!

My first, but hopefully, not my last Dahlia.

I read a recent blog posting on GardenRant that linked to a list of garden "hard truths" and one of the truths sort of bugged me, stuck in my craw, if you will.

"Flowers, from a design standpoint, are non-essential--throw pillow equivalents. It’s foliage that makes the garden. Or, as a former Sunset garden writer once put it, 'Buying a plant for its flowers is like choosing a wife for her bonnet.' "

I have heard this advice/truth before and its always bothered me. It seems to me that it seems to imply that "real" gardeners don't care about flowers, short-lived and fragile -- they just take away from the true stars of the garden -- the foliage. I know there are Hosta collectors out there, and people go ape for rare types of conifers, but I couldn't imagine a garden that didn't have flowers. I can imagine visiting such a garden once, but not returning to it. So in defense of the lowly flower, I will supply these photos as a rejection of this "hard truth."


I supposed the foliage is lovely on these California Poppies and Nigella damascena, but I wouldn't have planted the seeds if they didn't have these delicate and delightful flowers


My new favorite rose is this Belinda's Dream. It reblooms, it smells nice. I can offer no comment on its foliage.


This Carefree Spririt Rose is all about the flowers, contantly, non-stop. I supposed you could argue that the rose is great not because of its flowers, but because it is drought tolerant and disease resistant, but I think the flowers are really nice.


This Strawberry Candy Daylily is a repeat bloomer and drought tolerant, but I just think its pretty.


My floribunda rose, "Sun flare" does has terrific foliage, but I certainly wouldn't care about it, if it didn't have the most lovely yellow buds throughout the summer.


Two of my favorite plants, Lavender (Munstead variety) and Yarrow (Achillea). Both have that gray, spidery foliage that is popular these days, but I love the combination of the flowers, the soft purple spikes with the contrasting white umbrels.


Everyone seems to be putting down the lowly Rudbeckia (brown-eyed Susan), but it blooms for over a month, is drought tolerant, and the yellow contrasts with almost everything in my pink and purple garden, especially this Flowercarpet rose (a line of roses I am totally in love with).



I think the Rudbeckia also works well with my Rubrum Lily, which has the most wonderful scent, and blooms for quite a while.



I did buy this Caryopteris divaricata for its foliage, but I love how it provides a framework for the Cosmos to weave through. So I do admit readily, there are qualities to plants besides their flowers you should absolutely consider, like drought-tolerance, length of bloom, disease resistance, and whether a plant's form/foliage/color will complement its plant neighbors. Considering how a plant will look after its lost is flowers, perhaps should be emphasized more, but buying a plant just for its foliage seems to be missing the point a bit.

-Steph

List of Plants:
Purple Dahlia
Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-Mist)
California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
Rosa 'Belinda's Dream'
Rosa 'Sun flare'
Rosa 'Carefree Spirit'
Rosa 'Flowercarpet Pink Supreme'
Caryopteris divaricata 'Snow Fairy'
Lilium speciosum Rubrum (Red Species Lily, Rubrum Lily)
Cosmos bipinnatus (Cosmos, Mexican Aster)
Rudbeckia fulgida (Brown-eyed Susan)
Hemerocallis 'Strawberry Candy' (Daylily)
Lavender angustifolia 'Munstead' (English Lavender)
Achillea sibirica (Siberian Yarrow)

Views of the Spring Garden

Last year I was a bit flattered when Susan Harris of Sustainable Gardening and Garden Rant (my favorite ranter, btw) emailed me for before and after shots of my lawn removal projects for a piece she was doing about the same. I was pretty horrified when I couldn't find anything to send her. I had never actually taken any before pictures of my yard before I started to tear it up. I think when I started I really had no plans, so the idea of documenting what I was doing never occurred to me. Now it's something I regret, and in general, both my husband and I have started taking more pictures of work we do on various projects around the house.

In the same thinking, I thought I would also try to be better about taking pictures of my garden each season, so that I could watch the progression of color and shapes. I'll try to take pictures from similar angles and locations for comparison. So here goes:

Views from the front left and right --


New this year is the Yarrow (Achillea 'Coronation Gold') and the yellow rose 'Sun Flare.' I really like the Yarrow. It has this hazy quality which allows other plants to peek through, and supposedly butterflys love it.



Things are definitely a bit scraggly, but the Dianthus (the pink stuff) and the Nepeta (purply stuff) are in full bloom. I absolutely love the Nepeta (Walker's Low). It blooms like crazy and has lovely grayish/silver foliage. It's really a great plant. Because it's part of the mint family, I think it can spread, but I've never found any suckers away from the mother plant, so maybe it's not a problem with this variety. Sorry about the digression.

View into the side garden from the front --


There's a lot going on in here, but its going to take a few years until I really appreciate this part of the house. I've planted a lot of Miscanthus and a few Arborvitae. I'm trying to create a screen for the seating area, but this part of the yard takes a lot of punishment. It gets full sun all day, and its like a wind tunnel, so I've struggled to find plants that will work. I've pretty much decided to focus on the ornamental grasses and roses, so it will take a while for everything to get big enough to make an impact.

Views along the fence --


I've planted daylilies and salvia. I'm still a bit undecided about this. I think I need something that blooms earlier than either, but also has to be indestructible because of the full sun, and proximity the street.



This little grouping is one of my favorites. It's another Nepeta (Six Hills Giant), Blue Grass (Festuca 'Elijah's Blue'), and Lamb's Ear (Staychis maybe 'Helen VonStein'). This little area takes a beating, has horrid, gloopy clay soil, and is in full sun, but the plants seem to love it.

That's it for the tour. I do need to include some pictures of the back, but I think it will be in a separate posting because there's a lot going on back there right now.

In parting, I will leave you with a few pictures of my Siberian Iris and Bearded Iris in bloom. My sister gave me both, and tried to adhere to my purple/pink/white color scheme when dividing them, but the crazy yellow/maroon Bearded Iris snuck in anyway. It totally doesn't go in my blue/purple Spring garden, but I love it anyway.




-Steph

p.s. The little blonde elf is my son, who graciously allowed me to photograph the yard while he played on his old scooter.

Even Less Mowing!

Why, you may be wondering, have I posted a pic of some grass, a pile of compost, and some scraggly looking plants? In fact, you are witnessing the birth of my newest plan, tentatively titled, "The Hedgey Strip." As part of the plan, I spent the last few glorious October days expanding the strip of earth that borders the fence in an effort to bring some sort of organization to the chaos that has been reigning thus far in the Side-yard.


You see, the yard has this gentle slope and anything I have planted near the fence is at eye-level and provides little privacy. You can sort of see the slope from this angle, and the reason why I might want to have more privacy (and it's not to hide the kid's toys, Maria). The only way I can think to solve this problem (besides ripping out the existing fence and adding one that's 2 feet taller) is by planting further up the slope in certain areas. In the early summer, I bought a bunch of tall grasses to make sort of a hedge, but I haven't been happy with the results. The grasses have done fine, but they have a tendency to get beat up by the winds that wip up the street and hit my corner lot. So now I've expanded 75% of the bed (for more flowers, of course) and I'm researching/contemplating what kind of plants to fill it in with. Whatever I plant has to be pretty wind resistant, take full sun, kind of erect (since I don't want anything flopping onto the turf that borders the bed), and pretty too. This problem may take a while to solve, but luckily I have all Winter to ruminate! -- I'm trying to accentuate the postive aspects of the upcoming season.


I leave you with this picture of Frog-gardener, the mascot for my yard. He's bedding down for the Winter, surrounded by Siberian Iris and Columbine, dreaming of Spring. I probably won't be posting much as it gets colder, so Happy Fall!
-SG

Work, work, work

Here's an "after" shot of the yard with the Landscaper mostly done. I think he promised to come back and put in some grass seed, but I'm kinda holding my breath. Joe (DiPietro) did manage to find me some more rocks and created a new flower bed where the Yew once was. I'm totally psyched with how everything has turned out...

I added another page to my website, a "To Do List," page. I can't say this was an original idea. Another garden blogger (I can't remember which one, my bad) suggested gardeners keep such a list to keep track of projects that need to get done. Brilliant idea, because it helps me prioritize, which my ADHD brain really needs help doing.

Today, I did a bit of work in the backyard. I'm having some trouble eradicating this Japanese Knotweed stuff. It's so invasive that people actually eat it as a means of controlling its growth. I pulled out a few new shoots (a daily chore of mine), and cursed the gardener that introduced this stuff to North America.

I also moved a bunch of stuff around, including the Variegated Hydrangea in the picture above, and potted up some Hosta for my sister's hillside anti-erosion project. My Hosta's look terrible. I think the slugs are happy.

-SG

Bringing in the Big Guns!

Woo hoo! The image above is actually an improvment! What you are looking at is the former site of my Yew Stump and Dead Lilac Stump/Mound/Jungle. I called in the pros (Joseph DiPietro of Swampscott MA) and for a fee I got hime to remove the dreaded stumps. I am now a proponent of hiring professionals. It took them about an hour to do what would of taken my husband and I days and possibly the health of our marriage.

Now I just have to figure out what to put in the stumps' place!

-SG

Rain!

There were several plant emergencies to be dealt with today...some of my Echinacea were seriously wilting, major weed advances, yellowing and overcrowded seedlings, flopping Cosmos. Yikes! I could go on for pages...

So I clipped back the Echinacea (I hope it recovers; it was one of my first successful plant purchases), weeded about 2 bags worth of nasties, moved my Digitalis and Echinacea seedlings (that I had started from seed under grow lights this February), moved more light tolerant plants to the spot along my driveway that turned out to be full-sun, not partial shade, split the Dianthus, then planted a few Hosta that I had potted up last fall into bare spots that were weed hotspots (until I can afford something better). I also planted a new Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant' along the driveway.

Along with all that busy work, I was mucho excited to find a baby Lavender ('Munstead') seedling that must have grown from seed from its parent. It was practically growing into the asphalt along the front bed. I moved it to a better locale (but don't have high hopes).

I'm definitely starting to have the mid-summer blues though. A lot of my early summer stuff is starting to fade, and I really don't have too much late summer plants to look forward to (I'm counting on the Boltonia to perk me up). Makes me think I should buy a few Asters or Lilies (I've been lusting over 'Black Beauty' bulbs from Old House Gardens, but have yet to plunk down the MC).

There are a few high points though; the Rose 'Yellow Carpetflower' is chugging away, and the Phlox, Platycodons, and Perovskia are all in full-bloom.

-SG

What is the plural form of 'Iris'?

Is it "Irises" or "Irisi" or is it just "Iris" (like fish)? The reason I ask is that my lovely big sis split her Bearded Iris (Iris germanica) and Siberian Iris (Iris sibirica) and gifted me with quite a few extra (yay)! I had to sneak out yesterday morning to get them into the ground (and find a place for them).

I am super excited because...I was complaining to my Mom that though my garden looks great now, it looked really terrible in early June after the tulips and crocus (crocusi?) had bloomed; really green, and scraggly...she mentioned that I needed Iris, and now I will have them. I hope.

In other news, I fought another battle against the Japanese Knotweed. The war began last year when I decided to tackle the mess growing along my fence in the backyard, and discovered that when I cut down the nasty stuff, it grew back in like...10 more places. Today I'm hoping the strategy of going over to my neighbor's side of the fence (with his permission, of course) and digging up some largish clumps will turn the tide.

-SG

P.S. my Sweet Pea is blooming!